Andre Gunder Frank: True world history & global ORIENTation

Table of Contents
Preface Introduction to Real World History vs. Eurocentric Social Theory
Holistic Methodology and Objectives
Globalism, not Eurocentrism
Outline of a Global Economic Perspective
Anticipating and Confronting Resistance and Obstacles
The Global Trade Carousel 1400-1800
An Introduction to the World Economy
World Division of Labor and Balances of Trade
India and the Indian OceanSoutheast AsiaMoney Went Around the World and Made the World Go Round
World Money: Its Production and Exchange
How Did the Winners Use Their Money?
The Global Economy: Comparisons and Relations
Quantities: Population, Production, Productivity, Income, and TradeQualities: Science and Technology
Mechanisms: Economic and Financial Institutions
Horizontally Integrative MacrohistorySimultaneity Is No Coincidence
Doing Horizontally Integrative MacrohistoryWhy Did the West Win (Temporarily)?
Is There a Long-Cycle Roller Coaster?
The Decline of the East Preceded the Rise of the West
How Did the West Rise?
A Global Economic Demographic Explanation
Historiographic Conclusions and Theoretical ImplicationsHistoriographic Conclusions: The Eurocentric Emperor Has No Clothes
Theoretical Implications: Through the Global Looking Glass
References
Index

The section on Southeast Asia is especially interesting, where Frank describes the region as having been the lynchpin and center of entrepot commerce in sea-going global trading for the last two thousand years, where the 2 ends of this world trade (mainly China in the East, and the Mediterranean countries in the West), were actually pretty much ignorant of each others’ existence, and which was richly facilitated by the seafaring Arabian merchants and the seafaring Javanese+Bugis traders.

This ties in well with material I read elsewhere which investigated that much of the innovation in sailing and ocean-going vessels technology+techniques in the Chinese ships of the Ming dynasty fleet, and which was later picked up (through the Arabian ships+navigators) by the western countries allowing them to kickstart their Old Imperialism navigational voyages (sacrilegeous eh! I can just hear the gasps now), actually originated from the Javanese, Sumatran and Bugis sailors and shipbuilders of the (at that time still Hindu & Buddhist) ancient Indonesian archipelago empires — Srivijava, Sailendra, Majapahit, Sanjaya empires.

Southeast Asia (through maritime), together with Central Asia (through overland), truly were the ‘centers’ of world trade for much of the last 5000 years.

Another interesting book from Gunder Frank:
—The World system: five hundred years or five thousand?

Table of Contents

Introduction
The 5,000-Year World System: An Interdisciplinary Introduction
Building Blocks of Theory and Analysis
“Capital” Imperialism and Exploitation in Ancient World Systems
The cumulation of Accumulation
Hegemonic Transitions in the World System
Using the Theory to Reanalyze History
World System Cycles, Crises, and Hegemonic Shifts, 1700 BC to 1700 AD
Transitiona Ideological Modes: Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism
The World System: 500 Years or 5,000? Discussing the Theoretical, Historical and Political Issues
Civilizations, Cores, World Economies, and Oikumenes
The Ancient World-System Versus the Modern Capitalist World-System
Discontinuities and Persistence: One World System or a Succession of Systems?
World System Versus World-Systems: A Critique
Rejoinder and Conclusions

And others:

—T’ang China : the rise of the East in world history
—The centrality of Central Asia